RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31187, 11 October 1966, Page 32

RANDOM REMINDER

ROUNDELAY

Traffic is pretty big business these days, apart from the cost of vehicles and their maintenance, roads, the provision of vast car parks, and the cicadalike sounds of the parking meters. Sign writing must be a major undertaking; but it is an alleged lack of it in some parts of the city which has led a correspondent to pass on his findings about Cathedral square. “Recently," he writes “I saw a woman motorist enter the square from the south and turn right, towards the Government buildings. She was snarled up with oncoming traffic, and some terse comments were made by some of the citizenary before she was turned round the correct way by a traffic officer. It made me wonder why she had driven the wrong way

—or if in fact she had. I took a look at the four entrances to the square and this is what I found: “From the South: One nearly worn-out arrow on the roadway in the square itself. A small sign for buses only on the centre zone. A small ‘no entry’ sign high on a post at the south of the cathedral and facing directly east where it can not be read by any traffic. “From the East and West: A small sign low down on posts. This can not be seen if you are following traffic and it can not be read from a reasonable distance. No road markings. "From the North: Go for your life in any direction. There's no pole signs, no zone signs, no road markings, just nothing.” The correspondent, having got all that off his chest, moved south-east to

the pedestrian crossing at the lights in Manchester : street, between the garden triangle outside the Excelsior Hotel and the Com mercial Bank corner. : “This roadway was re sealed about a year ago ! he says “The crossing wa ’ repainted as before an. ! has again been recently rc 1 painted in the same place ; The end of the crossing b--1 the bank is obstructed b\ two traffic light standards 1 and one power pole, leavk ing only about 18 inches of i room on the six-foot wide s crossing. No-one has i apparently thought to have - it on a slightly different 1 angle to clear the posts—or are they waiting for the r posts to be shifted?” The correspondent’s obo servations were of eonsiderable interest. Particularly to us. We’ve been - turning right towards the s Government buildings for o years.